1st Edition
Environment and Resettlement Politics in China The Three Gorges Project
The Three Gorges dam, currently being constructed on the Yantgze River in China, is controversial both inside and outside China, particularly because of the large number of people to be resettled (officially 1.2 million) and the environmental impacts. Using material previously unavailable in any Western language, it analyses the Chinese discussions over policy-making for the resettlement process and impacts. It concludes that the environment and resettlement policies have been linked in a new way in this project. However, despite these positive developments, it argues that the social impacts from resettlement have not yet reached a high level of political attention and that the Chinese authorities need to acknowledge that resettlement has social costs. The book provides an understanding of the social, political and economic factors of one of the largest and most controversial development projects currently being implemented. It also sheds light on China's policy-making procedures and political priorities over the past decade.
Biography
Gørild Merethe Heggelund is a Senior Research Fellow at The Fridtjof Nansen Institute, Norway
’...a must read for anyone seriously interested in the Sanxia project as well as providing useful information about recent changes in Chinese policy formulation.’ Dr Richard Louis Edmonds, University of London, UK ’Heggelund’s monograph takes us on a fascinating journey, historical and analytical, along the tortuous decision making process for building the world’s largest, most extraordinary hydropower dam...A vast readership -engineers and political scientists, sociologists and economists, anthropologists and geographers, policy makers and development practitioners-as well as future programs of dam building, stand to learn and benefit from Heggelund’s work.’ Professor Michael M. Cernea,George Washington University, USA and Former Senior Adviser for Social Policy of the World Bank
